The Sociology of Max Weber

by Frank
Elwell
Rogers State University

I originally created this web site on Weber (pronounced
"Vay-bur") in 1996 for my students in social theory.
Most of the paper is fairly standard, it is based on
information and insights from standard texts or through
other secondary sources. My intention in summarizing
this information was simply to present Weber in a fairly
coherent and comprehensive manner, using language and
structure for the generalists amongst us.

I do claim some originality in regard to explaining
oligarchy, the rationalization process, and the
difference between formal and substantive rationality
(what I have called "the irrationality factor"). In
fact, I expand on these Weberian themes considerably in
my book,
Industrializing America: Understanding Contemporary
Society through Classical Sociological Analysis.
(Yes, I know, bad title. If I had a chance to do it
again it would be HyperIndustrialism.) I have
found Weber's ideas on rationalization, the
irrationality factor, and sociocultural evolution, to be
particularly difficult to get across to students. Yet
these ideas are at the heart of Weber's sociology and, I
believe, central in understanding contemporary society.

Bureaucracy

Weber's focus on the trend of rationalization led him to
concern himself with the operation and expansion of
large-scale enterprises in both the public and private
sectors of modern societies (Aron,
1970;
Coser, 1977). Bureaucracy can be considered to be a
particular case of rationalization, or rationalization
applied to human organization. Bureaucratic coordination
of human action, Weber believed, is the distinctive mark
of modern social structures. In order to study these
organizations, both historically and in contemporary
society, Weber developed the characteristics of an
ideal-type bureaucracy:

Hierarchy of
authority

Impersonality

Written rules of
conduct

Promotion based on
achievement

Specialized division
of labor

Efficiency

According to Weber, bureaucracies are goal-oriented
organizations designed according to rational principles
in order to efficiently attain their goals. Offices are
ranked in a hierarchical order, with information flowing
up the chain of command, directives flowing down.
Operations of the organizations are characterized by
impersonal rules that
explicitly state duties, responsibilities, standardized
procedures and conduct of office holders. Offices are
highly specialized . Appointments to these offices are
made according to specialized qualifications rather than
ascribed criteria. All of these ideal characteristics
have one goal, to promote the efficient attainment of
the organization's goals (Aron,
1970;
Coser, 1977).

Some have seriously misinterpreted Weber and have
claimed that he liked bureaucracy, that he believed that
bureaucracy was an "ideal" organization. Others have
pronounced Weber "wrong" because bureaucracies do not
live up to his list of "ideals." Others have even
claimed that Weber "invented" bureaucratic organization.
But Weber described bureaucracy as an "ideal type" in
order to more accurately describe their growth in power
and scope in the modern world. His studies of
bureaucracy still form the core of organizational
sociology.

The bureaucratic coordination of the action of large
numbers of people has become the dominant structural
feature of modern societies. It is only through this
organizational device that large-scale planning and
coordination, both for the modern state and the modern
economy, become possible. The consequences of the
growth in the power and scope of these organizations is
key in understanding our world.

Authority

Weber's discussion of authority relations also provides
insight into what is happening in the modern world. On
what basis do men and women claim authority over others?
Why do men and women give obedience to authority
figures? Again, he uses the ideal type to begin to
address these questions. Weber distinguished three main
types of authority:

Traditional
Authority

Rational-legal
Authority

Charismatic

Rational legal authority is anchored in impersonal rules
that have been legally established. This type of
authority (which parallels the growth of zweckrational)
has come to characterize social relations in modern
societies (Aron,
1970;
Coser, 1977). Traditional authority often dominates
pre-modern societies. It is based on the belief in the
sanctity of tradition, of "the eternal yesterday" (Aron,
1970;
Coser, 1977). Because of the shift in human
motivation, it is often difficult for modern students to
conceive of the hold that tradition has in pre-modern
societies.
Unlike rational-legal authority, traditional authority
is not codified in impersonal rules but is usually
invested in a hereditary line or invested in a
particular office by a higher power (Coser,
1977). Finally, charismatic authority rests on the
appeal of leaders who claim allegiance because of the
force of their extraordinary personalities.

Again, it should be kept in mind that Weber is
describing an ideal type; he was aware that in empirical
reality mixtures will be found in the legitimization of
authority (Coser,
1977). The appeal of Jesus Christ, for example, one
of the most important charismatics in history, was
partly based on tradition as well.

Oligarchy

Weber noted the dysfunctions of bureaucracy in terms of
the impact that it had on individuals. Its major
advantage, efficiency in attaining goals, makes it
unwieldy in dealing with individual cases. The
impersonality, so important in attaining efficiency of
the organization, is dehumanizing. But the concern over
bureaucracy's threat to the members of a particular
organization has served to overshadow its effects on the
larger society. Weber was very concerned about the
impact that rationalization and bureaucratization had on
sociocultural systems.

By its very nature bureaucracy generates an enormous
degree of unregulated and often unperceived social
power. Because of bureaucracy's superiority over other
forms of organization, they have proliferated and now
dominate modern societies. Those who control these
organizations, Weber warned, control the quality of our
life, and they are largely self-appointed leaders.

Bureaucracy tends to result in oligarchy, or rule by the
few officials at the top of the organization. In a
society dominated by large formal organizations, there
is a danger that social, political and economic power
will become concentrated in the hands of the few who
hold high positions in the most influential of these
organizations.

The issue was first raised by Weber, but it was more
fully explored by Robert Michels a sociologist and
friend of Weber's.
Michels (1915) was a socialist and was disturbed to
find that the socialist parties of Europe, despite their
democratic ideology and provisions for mass
participation, seemed to be dominated by their leaders,
just as the traditional conservative parties. He came to
the conclusion that the problem lay in the very nature
of organizations. He formulated the 'Iron Law of
Oligarchy': "Who says organization, says oligarchy."

According to the "iron law" democracy and large scale
organization are incompatible. Any large organization,
Michels pointed out, is faced with problems of
coordination that can be solved only by creating a
bureaucracy. A bureaucracy, by design, is
hierarchically organized to achieve efficiency--many
decisions that have to be made every day cannot be made
by large numbers of people in an efficient manner. The
effective functioning of an organization therefore
requires the concentration of much power in the hands of
a few people.

The organizational characteristics that promote
oligarchy are reinforced by certain characteristics of
both leaders and members of organizations. People
achieve leadership positions precisely because they have
unusual political skill; they are adept at getting their
way and persuading others of the correctness of their
views. Once they hold high office, their power and
prestige is further increased. Leaders have access and
control over information and facilities that are not
available to the rank-and-file. They control the
information that flows down the channels of
communication. Leaders are also strongly motivated to
persuade the organization of the rightness of their
views, and they use all of their skills, power and
authority to do so.

By design of the organization, rank and file are less
informed than their "superiors." Finally, from birth, we
are taught to obey those in positions of authority.
Therefore, the rank and file tend to look to the leaders
for policy directives and are generally prepared to
allow leaders to exercise their judgment on most
matters.

Leaders also have control over very powerful negative
and positive sanctions to promote the behavior that they
desire. They have the power to grant or deny raises,
assign workloads, fire, demote and that most gratifying
of all sanctions, the power to promote. Most important,
they tend to promote junior officials who share their
opinions, with the result that the oligarchy become a
self-perpetuating one. Therefore, the very nature of
large scale organization makes oligarchy within these
organizations inevitable. Bureaucracy, by design,
promotes the centralization of power in the hands of
those at the top of the organization.

Rationalization

The rationalization process is the practical application
of knowledge to achieve a desired end. It leads to
efficiency, coordination, and control over both the
physical and the social environment. It is a product of
"scientific specialization and technical
differentiation" that seems to be a characteristic of
Western culture (Freund,
1968). It is the guiding principle behind
bureaucracy and the increasing division of labor. It
has led to the unprecedented increase in both the
production and distribution of goods and services. It
is also associated with secularization,
depersonalization, and oppressive routine. Increasingly,
human behavior is guided by observation, experiment and
reason (zweckrational) to master the natural and social
environment to achieve a desired end (Elwell,
1999).

Freund (1968: 18) defines it as "the organization of
life through a division and coordination of activities
on the basis of exact study of men's relations with each
other, with their tools and their envionmnet, for the
purpose of achieving greater efficiency and
productivity." Weber's general theory of rationalization
(of which bureaucratization is but a particular case)
refers to increasing human mastery over the natural and
social environment. In turn, these changes in social
structure have changed human character through changing
values, philosophies, and beliefs. Such superstructural
norms and values as individualism, efficiency,
self-discipline, materialism, and calculability (all of
which are subsumed under Weber's concept of
zweckrational) have been encouraged by the
bureaucratization process.

Bureaucracy and rationalization were rapidly replacing
all other forms of organization and thought. They formed
a stranglehold on all sectors of Western society:

It is horrible to think that the world could one day
be filled with nothing but those little cogs, little
men clinging to little jobs and striving toward
bigger ones--a state of affairs which is to be seen
once more, as in the Egyptian records, playing an
ever increasing part in the spirit of our present
administrative systems, and especially of its
offspring, the students. This passion for
bureaucracy ...is enough to drive one to despair. It
is as if in politics. . . we were to deliberately to
become men who need "order" and nothing but order,
become nervous and cowardly if for one moment this
order wavers, and helpless if they are torn away
from their total incorporation in it. That the world
should know no men but these: it is in such an
evolution that we are already caught up, and the
great question is, therefore, not how we can promote
and hasten it, but what can we oppose to this
machinery in order to keep a portion of mankind free
from this parceling-out of the soul, from this
supreme mastery of the bureaucratic way of life.(Note
)

Rationalization is the most general element of Weber's
theory. He identifies rationalization with an
increasing division of labor, bureaucracy and
mechanization (Gerth
and Mills, 1946). He associates it with
depersonalization, oppressive routine, rising
secularism, as well as being destructive of individual
freedom (Gerth
and Mills, 1946;Freund,
1968) .

The Irrationality Factor

Since it is clear that modern societies are so
pervasively dominated by bureaucracy it is crucial to
understand why this enormous power is often used for
ends that are counter to the interests and needs of
people (Elwell,
1999). Why is it that "as rationalization increases,
the irrational grows in intensity"? (Freund,
1968: 25). Again, the rationalization process is
the increasing dominance of zweckrational action over
rational action based on values, or actions motivated by
traditions and emotions. Zweckrational can best be
understood as "technocratic thinking," in which the goal
is simply to find the most efficient means to whatever
ends are defined as important by those in power.

Technocratic thinking can be contrasted with
wertrational, which involves the assessment of goals and
means in terms of ultimate human values such as social
justice, peace, and human happiness. Weber maintained
that even though a bureaucracy is highly rational in the
formal sense of technical efficiency, it does not follow
that it is also rational in the sense of the moral
acceptability of its goals or the means used to achieve
them. Nor does an exclusive focus on the goals of the
organization necessarily coincide with the broader goals
of society as a whole. It often happens that the
single-minded pursuit of practical goals can actually
undermine the foundations of the social order (Elwell,
1999). What is good for the bureaucracy is not
always good for the society as a whole--and often, in
the long term, is not good for the bureaucracy either.

In a chapter entitled "How Moral Men Make Immoral
Decisions," John De Lorean a former General Motors
executive (and famous for many things) muses over
business morality. "It seemed to me, and still does,
that the system of American business often produces
wrong, immoral and irresponsible decisions, even though
the personal morality of the people running the business
is often above reproach. The system has a different
morality as a group than the people do as individuals,
which permits it to willfully produce ineffective or
dangerous products, deal dictatorially and often
unfairly with suppliers, pay bribes for business,
abrogate the rights of employees by demanding blind
loyalty to management or tamper with the democratic
process of government through illegal political
contributions" (J.
Wright, 1979: 61-62). De Lorean goes on to
speculate that this immorality is connected to the
impersonal character of business organization.
Morality, John says, has to do with people. "If an
action is viewed primarily from the perspective of its
effect on people, it is put into the moral realm. . .
.Never once while I was in General Motors management did
I hear substantial social concern raised about the
impact of our business on America, its consumers or the
economy" (J.
Wright, 1979: 62-63).

One of the most well-documented cases of the
irrationality factor in business concerns the Chevrolet
Corvair (Watergate, the IRS, the Post Office, recent
elections, and the Department of Defense provide plenty
of government examples). Introduced to the American
Market in 1960, several compromises between the original
design and what management ultimately approved were made
for financial reasons. "Tire diameter was cut, the
aluminum engine was modified, the plush interior was
downgraded and a $15 stabilizing bar was deleted from
the suspension system" (R.
Wright, 1996). As a result, a couple of the
prototypes rolled over on the test tracks and it quickly
became apparent that GM had a problem (J.
Wright, 1979;
R. Wright, 1996). De Lorean again takes up the
story.

At the very least, then, within General Motors in
the late 1950s, serious questions were raised about
the Corvair's safety. At the very most, there was a
mountain of documented evidence that the car should
not be built as it was then designed. . . .The
results were disastrous. I don't think any one car
before or since produced as gruesome a record on the
highway as the Corvair. It was designed and promoted
to appeal to the spirit and flair of young people.
It was sold in part as a sports car. Young Corvair
owners, therefore, were trying to bend their car
around curves at high speeds and were killing
themselves in alarming numbers (J.
Wright, 1979: 65-66).

The denial and cover-up led the corporation to ignore
the evidence, even as the number of lawsuits
mounted--even as the sons and daughters of executives of
the corporation were seriously injured or killed (J.
Wright, 1979). When
Ralph Nader (1965) published his book that detailed
the Corvair's problems, Unsafe at Any Speed, the
response of GM was to assign a private detective to
follow him so as to gather information to attack him
personally rather than debate his facts and assertions (Halberstam,
1986;
J. Wright, 1979;
R. Wright, 1996). Internal documents were destroyed,
and pressure was put on executives and engineers alike
to be team players (J.
Wright, 1979). De Lorean summarizes the irrational
character of the bureaucracy's decision making process:

There wasn't a man in top GM management who had
anything to do with the Corvair who would purposely
build a car that he knew would hurt or kill people.
But, as part of a management team pushing for
increased sales and profits, each gave his
individual approval in a group to decisions which
produced the car in the face of the serious doubts
that were raised about its safety, and then later
sought to squelch information which might prove the
car's deficiencies (J.
Wright, 1979: 65-68).

The result was that despite the existence of many moral
men within the organization, many immoral decisions were
made.

An extreme case of rationalization was the extermination
camps of Nazi Germany. The goal was to kill as many
people as possible in the most efficient manner, and the
result was the ultimate of dehumanization--the murder of
millions of men, women and children. The men and women
who ran the extermination camps were, in large part,
ordinary human beings. They were not particularly evil
people. Most went to church on Sundays; most had
children, loved animals and life.
William Shirer (1960) comments on business firms
that collaborated in the building and running of the
camps: "There had been, the records show, some lively
competition among German businessmen to procure orders
for building these death and disposal contraptions and
for furnishing the lethal blue crystals. The firm of I.
A. Topf and Sons of Erfurt, manufacturers of heating
equipment, won out in its bid for the crematoria at
Auschwitz. The story of its business enterprise was
revealed in a voluminous correspondence found in the
records of the camp. A letter from the firm dated
February 12, 1943, gives the tenor:

To: The Central Construction Office of the
S.S. and Police, AuschwitzSubject: Crematoria 2 and 3 for the camp.
We acknowledge receipt of your order for five triple
furnaces, including two electric elevators for
raising corpses and one emergency elevator. A
practical installation for stoking coal was also
ordered and one for transporting ashes (Shirer,
1960: 971).

The “lethal blue crystals” of Zyklon-B used in the gas
chambers were supplied by two German firms which had
acquired the patent from I. G. Farben (Shirer,
1960). Their product could do the most effective
job for the least possible cost, so they got the
contract.
Shirer (1960) summarizes the organization of evil.
“Before the postwar trials in Germany it had been
generally believed that the mass killings were
exclusively the work of a relatively few fanatical S.S.
leaders. But the records of the courts leave no doubt
of the complicity of a number of German businessmen, not
only the Krupps and the directors of I.G. Farben
chemical trust but smaller entrepreneurs who outwardly
must have seemed to be the most prosaic and decent of
men, pillars--like good businessmen everywhere--of their
communities” (972-973). In sum, the extermination camps
and their suppliers were models of bureaucratic
efficiency using the most efficient means available at
that time to accomplish the goals of the Nazi
government.

But German corporations went beyond supplying the
government with the machinery of death, some actively
participated in the killing process. "This should
occasion neither surprise nor shock. I.G. Farben was
one of the first great corporate conglomerates. Its
executives merely carried the logic of corporate
rationality to its ultimate conclusion...the perfect
labor force for a corporation that seeks fully to
minimize costs and maximize profits is slave labor in a
death camp. Among the great German corporations who
utilized slave labor were AEG (German General Electric),
Wanderer-Autounion (Audi), Krupp, Rheinmetall Borsig,
Siemens-Schuckert and Telefunken" (Rubenstein,
1975: 58).
I.G. Farben's synthetic rubber (Buna) plants at
Auschwitz are a good example of the relationship between
corporate profits and Nazi goals. I.G. Farben's
investment in the plant at Auschwitz was
considerable--over $1,000,000,000 in 1970s American
dollars. The construction work required 170 contractors
and subcontractors, housing had to be built for the
corporate personnel, barracks for the workers. SS
guards supplied by the state would administer punishment
when rules were broken. The workers at the plants were
treated as all other inmates in the camp. The only
exception was one of diet, workers in the plants would
receive an extra ration of "Buna soup" to maintain "a
precisely calculated level of productivity" (Rubenstein,
1975: 58). Nor was any of this hidden from
corporate executives; they were full participants in the
horror. With an almost inexhaustible supply of workers,
the corporation simply worked their slave laborers to
death.

The fact that individual officials have specialized and
limited responsibility and authority within the
organization means that they are unlikely to raise basic
questions regarding the moral implications of the
overall operation of the organization.
Under the rule of specialization, society becomes more
and more intricate and interdependent, but with less
common purpose. The community disintegrates because it
loses its common bond. The emphasis in bureaucracies is
on getting the job done in the most efficient manner
possible. Consideration of what impact organizational
behavior might have on society as a whole, on the
environment, or on the consumer simply does not enter
into the calculation.

The problem is further compounded by the decline of many
traditional institutions such as the family, community,
and religion, which served to bind pre-industrial man to
the interests of the group. Rationalization causes the
weakening of traditional and religious moral authority
(secularization); the values of efficiency and
calculability predominate. In an advanced
industrial-bureaucratic society, everything becomes a
component of the expanding machine, including human
beings (Elwell,
1999).
C. Wright Mills, whose social theory was strongly
influenced by Weber, describes the problem:

It is not the number of victims or the degree of
cruelty that is distinctive; it is the fact that the
acts committed and the acts that nobody protests are
split from the consciousness of men in an uncanny,
even a schizophrenic manner. The atrocities of our
time are done by men as "functions" of social
machinery--men possessed by an abstracted view that
hides from them the human beings who are their
victims and, as well, their own humanity. They are
inhuman acts because they are impersonal. They are
not sadistic but merely businesslike; they are not
aggressive but merely efficient; they are not
emotional at all but technically clean-cut (C.
Wright Mills, 1958: 83-84).

The result is a seeming paradox-- bureaucracies, the
epitome of rationalization, acting in very irrational
ways. Thus we have economic bureaucracies in pursuit of
profit that deplete and pollute the environment upon
which they are based; political bureaucracies, set up to
protect our civil liberties, that violate them with
impunity; Agricultural
bureaucracies (educational, government, and business)
set up to help the farmer, that end up putting millions
of these same farmers out of business; Service
bureaucracies designed to care for and protect the
elderly, that routinely deny service and actually engage
in abuse. The irrationality of bureaucratic institutions
is a major factor in understanding contemporary society.
Weber called this formal rationalization as opposed to
substantive rationality (the ability to anchor actions
in the consideration of the whole). It can also be
called the irrationality of rationalization, or more
generally, the irrationality factor (Elwell,
1999). The irrationality of bureaucratic
institutions is a major factor is understanding
contemporary society.

Weber and Marx

Weber believed that Marxist theory was too simplistic,
reducing all to a single economic cause (Gerth
and Mills, 1946). However, Weber does not attempt to
refute Marx, rather he can be interpreted as an attempt
to round out Marx's economic determinism (Gerth
and Mills, 1946).

"Weber's views about the inescapable rationalization and
bureaucratization of the world have some obvious
similarities to Marx's notion of alienation. Both men
agree that modern methods of organization have
tremendously increased the effectiveness and efficiency
of production and organization and have allowed an
unprecedented domination of man over the world of
nature. They also agree that the new world of
rationalized efficiency has turned into a monster that
threatens to dehumanize its creators. But Weber
disagrees with Marx's claim that alienation is only a
transitional stage on the road to man's true
emancipation" (Coser,
1977: 232).

Weber believed that the alienation documented by Marx
had little to do with the ownership of the mode of
production, but was a consequence of bureaucracy and the
rationalization of social life.
Marx asserted that capitalism has led to the
"expropriation" of the worker from the mode of
production. He believed that the modern worker is not
in control of his fate, is forced to sell his labor (and
thus his self) to private capitalists. Weber countered
that loss of control at work was an inescapable result
of any system of rationally coordinated production (Coser,
1977). Weber argued that men could no longer engage
in socially significant action unless they joined a
large-scale organization. In joining organizations they
would have to sacrifice their personal desires and goals
to the impersonal goals and procedures of the
organization itself (Coser,
1977). By doing so, they would be cut off from a
part of themselves, they would become alienated.

Socialism and capitalism are both economic systems based
on industrialization--the rational application of
science, observation, and reason to the production of
goods and services. Both capitalism and socialism are
forms of a rational organization of economic life to
control and coordinate this production. Socialism is
predicated on government ownership of the economy to
provide the coordination to meet the needs of people
within society. If anything, Weber maintained, socialism
would be even more rationalized, even more bureaucratic
than capitalism. And thus, more alienating to human
beings as well (Gerth
and Mills, 1946: 49).

Sociocultural Evolution

According to Weber, because bureaucracy is a form of
organization superior to all others, further
bureaucratization and rationalization may be an
inescapable fate. "Without this form of (social)
technology the industrialized countries could not have
reached the heights of extravagance and wealth that they
currently enjoy. All indications are that they will
continue to grow in size and scope." Weber wrote of the
evolution of an iron cage, a technically ordered, rigid,
dehumanized society:

"It is apparent that today we are proceeding towards an
evolution which resembles (the ancient kingdom of Egypt)
in every detail, except that it is built on other
foundations, on technically more perfect, more
rationalized, and therefore much more mechanized
foundations. The problem which besets us now is not:
how can this evolution be changed?--for that is
impossible, but: what will come of it." Weber feared
that our probable future would be even more
bureaucratized, an iron cage that limits individual
human potential rather than a technological utopia that
sets us free (Aron,
1970;
Coser, 1977).

It is perhaps fitting to close with a quote from Max
engaged in speculation on the other future possibilities
of industrial systems. While Weber had a foreboding of
an "iron cage" of bureaucracy and rationality, he
recognized that human beings are not mere subjects
molded by sociocultural forces. We are both creatures
and creators of sociocultural systems. And even in a
sociocultural system that increasingly institutionalizes
and rewards goal oriented rational behavior in pursuit
of wealth and material symbols of status there are other
possibilities:

"No one knows who will live in this cage in the future,
or whether at the end of this tremendous development
entirely new prophets will arise, or there will be a
great rebirth of old ideas and ideals or, if neither,
mechanized petrification embellished with a sort of
convulsive self-importance. For of the last stage of
this cultural development, it might well be truly said:
'Specialists without spirit, sensualists without heart;
this nullity imagines that it has obtained a level of
civilization never before achieved" (Weber,
1904/1930: 181).